Welcome to our forums!
This online gardening community is different, political, and organic. I decided to start these forums so gardeners would have a free place to discuss heirloom gardening, gene-altered food, seed saving, natural politics and products. We are dedicated to saving our food and horticultural heritage, and hope you enjoy this forum for the free-thinking gardener!
Wishing you great gardening,
Jere Gettle

I live in Lafayette, LA. Zone 9a. I don't have a garden, per se. What I do have is 8 in-ground blueberry bushes, 4 in-pot strawberries, 4 in-pot goji berries, and 2 Apache thornless blackberry I planted about 4 months ago. They seem to be thriving as all of the canes are between 8'-12' long. I posted a question asking if I should prune the canes or just let them keep growing, but have not received a comment about what to do. Any takers?

Hi depending on how old your canes are at two years old you will want to thin the cans to 3-5 large canes. also tip the canes to a workable 42" to 50 inches this will also promote new cane growth. You will want to cut out any weak or sick looking canes so that you are left with just health strong tipped canes. I would spray in early spring with liquid lime sulfur to kill any fungus on the older canes. With any none fruiting sick and week canes that you cut out I would burn or depose of and not compost.
I hope this will be of some help. My main specialty is hot peppers but I have some blue berries and four 6 year old Goji berry bushes.
George W.

Hello there fellow dirtfarmers! My name is Nick, aka Split, Linguini, Maverick, Snazzman, ect, ect.
I live in the hot and balmy coastal region of Central Florida, in New Port Richey, near Tampa. Zone 9b-10a.
Very happy to greet you all, and a Thankyou very much to you Mr. Jere Gettle for putting together such an important and inspirational business to help those like-minded people out here striving for a better way.
I was raised on a small family farm here in my youth, but soon my father's gardens had to give way to more lucrative and consistent means of employment - cars. Not enjoying automotive work much at all, I was floating through life, looking for direction and purpose. I found it in cooking... or rather it found me. Being shoved into that first dish-pit of a grand restaurant was the best thing for me, as I soon developed a burning passion for gourmet food, and the art and skill of creating masterful works of edible art.

After slaving in the kitchens for over 10 years, I've learned (mostly from my current Sifu) to really appreciate food and the entire food cycle; where your food comes from, and how it's grown, is much more important than how it's prepared.
I've always had some sort of garden going somewhere, usually just in buckets, things like herbs and tomatoes, just to have fresh ingredients on hand. Recently my FiancÚ and I just acquired a house with a nice sized yard, and to get back to my "roots", to actually grow some food really would be a dream come true. Watching a beautiful veggie plant (or even better yet, some little critter), grow from almost nothing into a gorgeous form of life and nature fills me with that same old spark that I used to get from learning some creative new dish.

Now, beginning to realize the true dangers of our food, the food being produced for us and being sold as safe, from these evil supercorps, everything from HFCS to these lackluster hybrid veggies grown mainly for high transportability and low spoilage rates, to GMO crops being used as a vice by the evil Monsanto corps as a means to gain control of the entire commerce of our nation, in combination with other megacorps like Walmart who use terrible products to outsource the needs for entire towns... Pink slime...I am really beginning to see the downward spiral of our ways as a nation.

It would seem to me that getting 'back to our roots' is the only way to save this place in hopes of having some sort of future for our children.

Just recently I purchased the Gettle's book, "Heirloom Life Gardener"(with mag subscription), and got almost 30 packets of various seeds! The selection of heirloom veggies is amazing. Super excited to get started on growin some stuff!

Don't think I've 'reported' in to this thread since we moved from Austin to the Piedmont of South Carolina. We've been here a little over 2 years now and owned our farm for 4 years before that.

We have an "intentional community" made up of family and friends. We like to say we're related by birth, marriage, choice and chance. We started with 49.5 acres of old clear cut pine land that had previously grown cotton. Whew! The bad news is that it wouldn't grow much; the good news is that it was cheap.

We've improved the land, made 2 large commercial gardens and also a community 'kitchen' garden. We've slowly bought up adjoining properties and have expanded to 350 acres, most of which is planted in pines and pasture.

We grow mostly Heirloom veggies (organic practices, no certification), sell at 4 markets and have some regular customers that we make boxes for. We're living our 'homesteading' dream and we're tired most of the time. But it's worth it.